


Clowns to the Left of Me

by Katsuko



Series: 750 Words to Say [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Dark Knight (2008)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assassins & Hitmen, Gen, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 07:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katsuko/pseuds/Katsuko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were people who wanted to make those criminals who had escaped during the Narrows Riot pay dearly. They didn't want to get their own hands dirty, but were willing to pay - and pay well - for someone else to do the deed for them.</p><p>The woman who called herself Harlequin was quite willing to take their blood money.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clowns to the Left of Me

**Author's Note:**

> So, um. Yeah. I decided to write some more in my little alternate post- _Dark Knight_ universe. Because this Harley is kinda of fun as hell for me.
> 
> Keep an eye out for cameos!
> 
> Direct tie-in to [An Interview of Sorts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/864786).

There were many people who still felt frustrated and betrayed by how Gotham PD had handled the loss of the Narrows in the aftermath of Crane's fear toxin taking over the neighborhood. Most of those people simply complained to their friends and neighbors, made noise about _not_ making a donation to the police department this year, or stewed in impotent rage.

Some of those people, however, wanted to make those criminals who had escaped during the confusion pay dearly. These people didn't have either the physical capabilities or technical skills to do anything to those they deemed guilty, but they were nothing if not industrious. These people didn't want to get their own hands dirty, but were willing to pay - and pay well - for someone else to do the deed for them.

The woman who called herself Harlequin was quite willing to take their blood money.

The woman had lived her whole life in the Narrows, working hard at school and at the diner so she could get an education and maybe do something important with her life. She was also the daughter of a small-time con man, so she knew a thing or fifty about how to play a part well and how to use whatever possible weapon was at her disposal in an instant. She knew how to handle a gun - that was one of Daddy's first lessons - but she much preferred getting up close and personal. There was poetry in the knife sliding between two ribs to strike at the heart, art in the garrotte and the color of flesh as the oxygen fled. She'd even used her thighs once to smother a man, not her proudest moment but she'd been posing as a hooker and he'd tried to go down on her.

She was a _lady_ , thank you very much, and there were certain things that a lady didn't give away even if she was on a job.

Harlequin had already killed at least a dozen convicts that had escaped from Arkham during the Narrows Riots when she started getting inquiries about outside work. She'd apparently built quite the reputation already, and there were people looking for vengeance in other avenues aside from what had gone down six months prior. There were more scumbuckets in the city than the Arkham escapees, and people were starting to offer her money to take those people out of the gene pool now.

Who was she to say no?

She applied for a job as a receptionist at Fischer Marrow, adopting a slightly ditzy persona and the name Harleen Quinzel. "Harleen" was hired fairly quickly, and she settled in to do her new part-time job as she kept an eye on her target. The man, William Dennings, had been accused of sexual battery by several former acquaintances and nearly been taken to trial for the charge exactly once. Most of the accusers had been prostitutes and, sadly, ignored by Gotham PD. The one case that had made it to court was a socialite who abruptly decided to settle out of court before the first day of deposition.

The woman, who didn't give her name but who Harlequin knew from word amongst the underground, had been the one to hire her. She told the assassin that she'd started receiving death threats as the trial date approached, and that she was powerless to actually do anything.

Harlequin promised results, said she would bring back a souvenir for her client.

It took nearly a month to get close enough to Dennings for him to proposition her, and she played her part beautifully. She even managed a few crocodile tears when he said that if she didn't suck his cock he would see to it that she was fired for insubordination, that she would never find another job in Gotham.

She stabbed him fifteen times in the stomach and cut off the appendage he so clearly thought with. It was packaged neatly in dry ice and sent express parcel mail to her client with a note reading _Now he can never hurt you again. This is yours to do with as you see fit._

After that job, she took on a few simpler ones: no need for infiltration and a sniper rifle sufficed for one of those little odd jobs. But then she got an email from a new client. This one had been a relative of an Arkham inmate that had been killed on the inside, a man who had just suffered genuine madness and was harmless.

Jarvis Tetch had simply been overly obsessed with the works of Lewis Carroll, convinced that he was the Hatter and that he had very important tasks to do involving helping young girls find their way home. He'd been labeled as a potential pedophile and sent to Arkham for rehabilitation. His fiancée, Alice Pleasance, had visited as often as she was able and had become worried over how one particular guard treated him. When Jarvis abruptly died while in the asylum, Alice requested an inquiry and was denied. She looked into the situation on her own and found that the guard she'd been troubled by had been the last person to see her fiancé alive.

Alice only wanted one thing: that particular guard dead, quickly, with no witnesses who would implicate Harlequin's presence. She even added that if the assassin had to kill any witnesses, she would compensate for the supplies wasted on them.

For this job, she became Helen Quincy, a bright young intern who wanted to get her feet wet while working at the infamous Arkham Asylum. She made friends with the actual doctors, making herself an integral part of their team. As she did this, she kept an eye on the guards and their rotations, knowing that she would need to wait until she was alone with the man to complete her job for Alice.

Somehow, she was assigned to the team who was tasked with interviewing the Joker when he was brought in. Harlequin quite honestly didn't _mean_ to, but she could relate to the man. He called himself an agent of chaos, and she could definitely see how it could be fair and just. And for some reason, he refused to talk to anyone other than "Dr. Quincy."

It worked out beautifully, though. In a little over two months, the opportunity that she had been awaiting arrived, and Harlequin took down her target with only the Joker standing as witness. And while she could have just as easily killed him and made her escape, she instead smuggled him out in the dead guard's uniform as her escort to the parking deck.

When she went into this assignment, she had been a one-woman show. Now she quite possibly had a partner, a huge payday on the horizon - Alice was wealthy, and she had been _very_ generous with how much money she was willing to give to avenge her lover - and a new identity she could slip into comfortably when she wasn't on the job.

 _Harley Quinn_ had quite a lovely ring to it.


End file.
